Post-production video, film, and sound editors must frequently look for, and play back, portions of a sequence of recorded material, such as a digitized video or audio recording. They can do this by using well known button-type interfaces, which include a series of control buttons such as: "play", "stop", "fast-forward", and "rewind". These allow the editor to sequentially move through the recorded material and play it back. Jog knobs, shuttle knobs, levers, and sliders are also available for moving through the material sequentially in order to find and play a given sequence.
In PCT Publication No. WO 93/21595, published Oct. 28, 1993, entitled "MEDIA COMPOSER INCLUDING POINTER-BASED DISPLAY OF SEQUENTIALLY STORED SAMPLES," Eric C. Peters and Joseph H. Rice present a mouse-based method of accessing video material. In this interface, a user can use a mouse to move a cursor to a location within a time line displayed on a video screen. This time line represents a sequence of recorded material, such as one or more video sequences. By selecting a position in the time line, the editor can display the image corresponding to that position. This interface is currently used in the "Media Composer" editing system, which is available from Avid Technology, Inc., of Tewksbury, Mass.
The time line in this system can display a cursor in the time line to indicate the currently selected position. It can also associate a series of representative frames of the video material with the time line, to assist the editor in finding a desired location within the material. The use of this time line in transition editing operations is discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/049,028, filed on Apr. 16, 1993, entitled "METHOD AND USER INTERFACE FOR CREATING, SPECIFYING AND ADJUSTING MOTION PICTURE TRANSITIONS", filed by Eric C. Peters, and Joseph H. Rice.
Digital audio editing operations have also been performed using a mouse-based time line approach. These types of operations are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/997,716, filed Dec. 31, 1992 and entitled "DISPLAY SYSTEM FACILITATING COMPUTER ASSISTED AUDIO EDITING", filed by Mark J. Norton. Further discussion of audio editing using time lines is presented in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/045,650, filed on Apr. 9, 1993, entitled "DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATION PROVIDING DIGITAL STORAGE AND DISPLAY OF VIDEO INFORMATION", filed by Peter J. Fasciano, et al.
A specialized mechanical user interface for video editing is presented in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/932,703, entitled "MECHANICAL USER INTERFACE", filed by Henry Sharpe III et al. This interface includes a slider which communicates with an Apple MacIntosh via the Apple Desktop Bus standard. The user can actuate the slider to play back video material at an adjustable rate, or frame-by-frame. The above applications are herein incorporated by reference.